November, 2008

Brooke, NY

Dear Liz,

Thank you so much for writing such a wonderful book. As the mother of a girl on the brink of starting middle school, I had been reading books like “Queen Bees and Wannabes” and “Odd Girl Out”. The stories made me wonder if girls handled their friendships like this as adolescents, how they handled them as adults? Your book was my answer. I could see some of my ended friendship in a little of every story you featured. The greatest part though is learning to look within myself and trying to understand my own responsibility in the ending of my friendship.

Five years ago, my husband and I moved from down South to the Central New York area. It was a big move for us and I was distraught over it because I had a great group of girlfriends through my daughter’s preschool whom I ached to leave. Not only was I leaving them, but our families as well—all scattered in the same state. I truly did not want to make the move, but it was a great career opportunity for my husband who had grown dissatisfied in his current position.

As much as my heart rallied against this move, the ease in which we found a house here and sold ours in Florida made me understand that perhaps it was just meant to be and I had to accept and make the best of it. I prayed deeply on it and my prayers were answered in the form of Amanda, my first friend in this new town.

From the moment I saw her we hit it off completely. There was chemistry between us that I had never experienced in friendships, even when I was a girl. I even dared to hope that we would wind up best friends—and for a while, we were. Amanda was also brand new to the area and anxious to make new friends. We latched on to each other quickly and I was flattered by the amount of time and attention she showered me with. To make the package complete, our oldest daughters were the same age and I secretly kept my fingers crossed that they would be in the same kindergarten class that fall. Once again my prayers were answered. The two girls became very close and play dates were also Mommy dates.

I quickly grew to love my friend deeply. She was charming, smart, graceful, and had an easy ability to make friends. I wished often that I could be as wonderful as she was, but I was content just to be included in her circle of friends. Life was good and I thanked God for making the transition easier and for sending me such a special person to share my heart with. We phoned, emailed and wrote letters to each other even though we saw one another almost every day. We affirmed each other as women, mothers and friends and I still keep her beautiful emails in my journal as reminders of how fortunate I was to have had such caring friend. She would call me on my birthday; she would give me small gifts, and have us over for dinner. Once she even included us at Thanksgiving with her family when we couldn’t travel back South for the holiday. That meant more to me than words could ever express and I made sure to always tell her how much I cherished her friendship.

With the passing of time, we each became busy with life’s daily routines and all of the sudden we had less time to spend with one another. Our girls were no longer as close, play dates became fewer and, suddenly, my daughter was dropped from birthday parties. She mourned her friend’s loss and was hurt and confused with being left out. By then Amanda’s little girl had made a new best friend and my daughter was no longer welcome. For a while I tried very hard to keep nurturing both our friendships, but our invitations went unreciprocated. I often spoke with Amanda and asked if something was wrong between us. She would deny anything had changed and chalked it up to just being extremely busy. Amanda had become a coach for our community gym’s swim team and both her girls were on the team. Practices were three to four times a week and meets were just about every weekend—all away because depth regulations disqualified our community pool for home meets. This meant long drives to different towns for her on weekends. Add family activities and guests to host and soon there was just no time for us to spend together.

When I would call I could sense that she was busy and would try to cut our conversations short. Sometimes I would hear her moving things around while on the phone with me and I could tell she just didn’t have the time for me. I felt awkward, sad and hurt and after enough unreturned phone calls, I allowed her to let me go. The mourning period soon followed and I shifted from feelings of deep hurt, to confusion, to anger and finally to quiet acceptance.

At the time I was dealing with my loss, I was helping my daughter through her feelings of losing her friend. It was hard trying to tell her that she couldn’t include her in her birthday parties because we just weren’t friends anymore. My daughter was always coming home from school very sad because Amanda’s daughter no longer played with her at recess, even though she said that they would be friends forever. Her new best friend went out of her way to keep my daughter away from them and accused her of getting between them. (Nothing could have been further from the truth because all she wanted was to be friends with them both.) My heart bled for her and I was so angry I wanted to call Amanda and ask her why she had done this to us? I blamed myself. I asked my daughter if she had ever been unkind to her friend at play dates and she always said no. With the passing of time, my daughter’s old friend only greeted her at school when she was alone. I angrily thought that Amanda’sdaughter was a little coward for not being able to stand up to her friend.

Finally I spoke to my daughter and told her that sometimes friendships just ended and we had to let go and move on. The only thing we could control was ourselves and if people wanted to let us go as friends we had to accept it and allow them to do that. It was a difficult conversation to have with a 10 year old child, but it was as much for my benefit as for hers.

With the passing of a little more time, my daughter has moved on to make other friends but still remembers her old friend with sad longing, as do I for her Mom. Because we live in a small town I see Amanda often and we are cordial, but I can tell that what we once had is no more. Our friendship cooled in a span of three years and once I got over the hardest part of losing her, I was able to get on without hearing from her on a daily basis. When I had enough emotional distance from the loss, I started to reexamine our friendship and some red flags went up over some odd remarks she made while we were still friends.

One Halloween I decided to spearhead a Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF drive at our local school and at the end of the event I wrote some heartfelt thank-yous to the students and teachers. Several hundred copies were made which went home in each student’s backpack. Over coffee, Amanda asked me if I had actually written the letter myself. I was hurt and confused by her question and I answered that I had, but she left me wondering why she would ask me that? She gave me the sense that she didn’t think I was smart enough to write such a letter. Another time she hosted a Christmas party for our Moms group and I was asked to sing. I was very nervous but I did so. (Singing has been a passion of mine since I was a little girl and sharing my talent was a struggle for me because I have always been very shy.) When I finished many of the women present expressed their appreciation, except for Amanda. As a matter of fact, she has never said very much at all to me after I sang and I have always wondered why?

Once she was rude to my husband because he was not able to attend a meeting her husband had called. They both work together but he is not my husband’s boss. It happened to be Back to School Night and I wasn’t expecting him to be out early enough to attend, but was pleasantly surprised when he did. I happened to be with Amanda and she asked if the meeting had let out early. When he answered that he had not attended because he was very busy with his own work, she became incensed and made a rude comment about him not attending her husband’s mandatory meeting. She turned around and walked away in a huff and I was left speechless. This was a side to her I had never known before. It wasn’t like her to act that way. Perhaps she was having a bad day and needed to take it out on someone. Whatever the reason, I realized that perhaps I didn’t know her as well as I thought I did.

There are times, however, when she still calls me out of the blue. Last May she called me just as the swim season drew to a close to tell me that she would like to spend some time with me. I was floored. I didn’t know what to say to her but I allowed her to talk. She apologized for being so busy and distant and she promised that once her home remodel was finished, she would have me over. We were on the phone for nearly an hour—she made me late to my voice lessons, but I didn’t care because it was like old times. We made a date to go for a walk together, but I had to cancel it because the weather turned foul and the relieved tone in her voice when I canceled confirmed that I had made the right decision.

Perhaps Amanda didn’t want me out of her life completely and that is why she continues to call. (Or she could be an absolute sadist who gets a thrill out of pulling my chain!) Whatever is going on with her, I did confess that I missed her and the closeness that we had once shared. She had no answer except that she was just crazy busy. (Perhaps there are things going on in her life that I know nothing about. I know that she has never been one to ask for help, even when she almost died giving birth to her son early in our friendship. She has called in the past to reprimand me for not calling her to watch my kids when I had a doctor’s appointment, but I found that impossible to do because by then our friendship had cooled completely). These are the times when I feel like I am getting mixed messages from her and I wonder what it is she really wants. I consider her a very smart lady but if she can be so self-absorbed to allow our friendship to fall by the wayside, and then pick up where it left off simply because now she has some free time, she is completely clueless.

This past summer we have had very little contact. My family traveled to China to adopt a little girl but when we came home, Amanda drove by on her way to swim practice and jumped out to see the baby. She asked me if I wanted a baby shower and I politely declined. It made no sense for her to do those things for me now and the irony is that she wrote an absolutely glowing letter on our behalf to our adoption agency when we first started the process. It saddened me how distant we had become. Three years ago, she would have been the first to come over and probably would have brought over the kids and a gift for the baby. Now I barely hear from her and her idea of a friendly visit to see the new baby was a chance drive by. It greatly saddened me that my best friend would not be around to share one of the happiest times of my life. She should have been there, as any friend would have, but it was over.

The only ending I can predict for this friendship is one that is total. Yet it would be irresponsible of me not to admit that I might bear some of the responsibility for its demise. I have often wondered if I had been a little more available for her, or if I had offered to help her out more when she needed it, or perhaps if I had been more open and less reserved I would still have her. I blame myself for a lot of things, but I don’t really know anything specific that may have caused its end. I know myself to hold back on my friends at first. But when my heart is given, it’s handed over completely and totally. That is when I put myself at risk for having my heart broken. But, can you love someone only halfway? I don’t think so.

Perhaps not all friendships are meant to last a lifetime. I asked God to help me in my greatest time of need and he sent me Amanda to ease the transition of moving into a new home. Perhaps her work is over and by holding on I get lost in a vicious circle of trying to fix something which is far too damaged to repair. But I can only hope that if we do find one another again in the future, we can talk about what happened to us and why we let our friendship get away. Whatever happens, she was an angel at my side for a while and I will be forever grateful for the beautiful memories and the friendship we shared.

Thank you for the opportunity to share my story and I apologize for its length.

Best,

Brooke